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I can believe that many women are having a hard time under modernity, because so many men no longer feel bound by the former expectations of old-school protector and provider behavior. Some men, like me, now view relationships as two autonomous individuals coming together to share sublime things like hobbies, art or travel, but don’t want to be viewed as a source of security. Other men might be just extracting casual sex from women and then will quickly move on. There’s much less social pressure on men to act a certain way, which in turn impacts on what women experience.
You’re probably consuming too much red pill nonsense if it’s hard for you to see why claiming that women who experience multiple sexual partners are mentally damaged is controversial.
The veneer of modern pop psych doesn’t change that this is just slut shaming, no different fundamentally from the claim that women who have multiple partners have loose vaginas. There’s no science behind these sorts of claims. It’s just a mask for insecurity.
Making claims about "evolution" of "women" without even demonstrating a passing familiarity with the (controversial!) field of evolutionary psychology is a choice.
>"What the theory of natural selection says, rather, is that people's minds were designed to maximize fitness in the environment in which those minds evolved. This environment is known as the EEA—the environment of evolutionary adaptation. Or, more memorably: the 'ancestral environment.'...
>"What was the ancestral environment like? The closest thing to a twentieth-century example is a hunter-gatherer society, such as the !Kung San of the Kalahari Desert in Africa, the Inuit (Eskimos) of the Arctic region, or the Ache of Paraguay.
>"Inconveniently, hunter-gatherer societies are quite different from one another, rendering simple generalization about the crucible of human evolution difficult. This diversity is a reminder that the idea of a single EEA is actually a fiction, a composite drawing; our ancestral social environment no doubt changed much in the course of human evolution. Still, there are recurring themes among contemporary hunter-gatherer societies, and they suggest that some features probably stayed fairly constant during much of the evolution of the human mind. For example: people grew up near close kin in small villages where everyone knew everyone else and strangers didn't show up very often. People got married—monogamously or polygamously—and a female typically was married by the time she was old enough to be fertile."
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The idea that modern life is different is obvious.
I get the impression that there's some other conversation going on here that has nothing to do with evolution and you are not saying "lets all live in Igloos...".
From what I can tell, men have cause significant damage to women's psyche. Men that turn women into a commodity plaything instead of a fellow human being.
Women are human beings just like men, they aren't some alien species. Trauma hurts their psyche, not pleasure. If women were in a safe, supportive, mature society, some would be monogamous, some would be poly, some would be non-committal (but honest), and some would be totally loose. Just like men. In every case they would be safe to be who they are without abuse.
Instead, and this is where men and women deviate, it is not safe. Men will often kill or crush women, physically, professionally, and often at random. Women are not allowed to walk around at night because some men having a bad day or a wild night may not be able to control themselves, and most of society is just okay with this. Police in large swaths of the world do not help make anything safer, in fact they make it more dangerous.
The only reason women who are more monogamous can seem better off is because society does not make room for those who aren't that way. And there are many who aren't that way. There are many who are forced to mask as that way because it is often dangerous otherwise. At large, a prison for women has been created. I think that people may even enjoy how dangerous it is, in order to force women to seek the safety of a man.
Most of society doesn't make room for liberated women and it is heartbreaking. I will dream of a future where I can meet women as total equals, in all walks of life, without disproportionate power, where all of us as humans are free to be who we are in totality.
No, that's not a complaint that the "modern" man isn't some sort of 1950s provider, it's a complaint that he does not text back. Everyone on the apps suffers from ghosting. It's exhausting because you have to be "On" in 100% of your interactions and texts but there's only like a 2% chance it will continue in any shape no matter what you do.
Even the "tradwife" trend is not actually harkening back to the 50s and a strong provider man, and instead lionizes a reality that never existed and is much more about wanting to check out of the rat race that harms us all. These women do not want to be a 1950s homemaker, they just want to focus on their hobbies and not worry about money.
No, I never said that. I said women need safety, and society is largely not safe for them.
Human beings are social creatures. Women need men. Women need women. Men need women. Men need men. We all need each other.
The system patterns of online dating cultivate undesirable traits in both men and women which result in side effects that no one would want. "Flakiness" is one such side effect.
Online dating dynamics create high abundance, low commitment environments that systematically produce “flakiness,” so the issue isn’t about women needing men or not, but that both sexes operate in a degraded safety/trust landscape shaped by platform incentives rather than by real world social cues. Restore actual interpersonal safety and the entire pattern shifts positive, with less defensive behavior, less attrition, less pain, and more ethical orgasms.
All people, regardless of gender, should cultivate a safety in both society and in themselves. This safety is liberating. Instead of controlling people, you free them. Instead of binding, you uplift. Instead of harming, you heal. This is the basis of safety.
Again, this is probably an outcome of modernity. I likely wouldn’t think this way as a man, if I didn’t grow up in a modern age hearing that women are strong, they can take care of themselves and no longer depend on men.
Safety doesn't mean you're a provider. It means you are safe to be authentic with. Safe to share truth with.
That safety takes many forms.
You cannot have depth without that safety. It is physical, it is also emotional and intellectual.
For instance, without safety a partner would never join you on many interesting experiences. If you want those experiences, they need to be able to trust you.
Now extend that idea of safety to a broad society context, and that is approaching what I was speaking to.
And again, maybe part of why women might be having problems with dating is that many men today don’t want to be seen as a big emotional support for a partner either. That’s draining and time-consuming. This might bother you, but my whole point is that the social pressures are no longer there to compel men (or women) to act a certain way, and that is impacting dating.
How many people are you talking about here? Like if you had to rephrase this point using numbers would you say “I’ve heard half a dozen women say this”?
That aside, can you elaborate on safety as a demand? I’ve never had a partner or friend demand safety from me, ever. The only times in my life that I have seen someone demand safety from another is when the latter is acting violent or reckless to the point that their behavior poses a threat.
This is unfortunately the reality of countless men, often going their entire lives like this, with bitterness and resentment growing outwardly instead of reflection inwardly.
Hijacking this response now for some advice / thoughts.
So for the lurking straight men: women are simply human beings trapped in a form you desire. The game here is simple. Don't try and control women as objects. Instead, try and control your desire.
I can promise with certainty, if you control your desire, everything you've ever dreamed and more will appear. This is not an easy game to play. But it is the only way to win.
Don't pursue women as romantic interests. Ever. Leave them alone. Instead, connect with them only as friends, and only as they initiate. This is the first step to escape the brainwashing we've all been subjected to.
This means you will be going through a withdrawal. It is difficult. Take a hike. Pour yourself into work. Take on new hobbies. Grow yourself.
Friends will appear. It doesn't matter what sex they are, they are friends, treat them with the same respect and kindness as you would anyone. This is your first test. This could appear in months, it could appear in years, it all depends on you.
We need to start seeing the light in each other, beyond the skin. Every single person, regardless of how you view them, has a universe in them. Help them become their universe. Don't trap them in yours.
I would wish we existed in a world where these things are lived by, and need not be said. But I know that someday, it will be this way. We will all see each other's humanity. We will inspire each other, enabling the maximum in creative output for everyone, regardless of our lineage and forms. We won't desire vengeance towards nor suffering for anyone any longer because the vastness of the ever expanding cosmos is so much larger than the finite histories of our pain.
It is from that place I try to share some thoughts. I wouldn't think I'd have to say "women are people too" from that place, but it has broad applicability and seems to be necessary in today's world.
The words "provider" and "security" do not have specific meanings.
I'm practice this could describe anything from:
"I want a guy who is ripped like Conan the barbarian and beats the crap out of anyone who dares look at me funny"
to:
"I want to be a stay at home mom."
To:
"I want a guy with a job who splits rent with me."
Proceeds to talk about baboons.
There are a ton of people that are happy to have serious discussions about how their superior knowledge of biology gives them oracular insight into the minds of women. These discussions happen every day in Discord chats full of pubescent boys, Discord chats full of young men, and YouTube comments sections full of older men.
I enjoy all the technical discourse here but the views on women are alarming to say the least.
You are gell-mann amnesia'ing. The takes on technology or anything else are just as buttfuck stupid and off.
The other day HN was full of people insisting that there would be some "unforseen downside" of dropping the penny and making stores round purchase amounts to the nickle.
Meanwhile, the first cash registers were only able to operate on 5 cent increments because in the early 1900s pennies were "inconvenient"!
Similarly, it's extremely common for people here to insist that "sales tax in the US is complicated" but it just isn't. The entry level cash register from the 90s supports "US, Canada, and VAT" tax schemes and supports 4 custom tax regimes and that is treated as fully expected functionality and was the norm in earlier systems as well.